News

It is hard to believe that almost 6 months has passed since the Lost Boys Birthday Party in January. HELPSudan is pleased to report that we are on track to accomplish our goals this year! We have raised more than half of our $100,000 fundraising goal for 2008 and progress is being made on a well and permanent buildings at Thian Wei! Thank you to all of our supporters that have made that a possibility.

Late last year we were told that the well had started to run dry at Thian Wei and it takes half an hour of hand pumping to get water to flow. One of HELPSudan’s priorities in 2008 has been to dig a fresh well on school grounds to supply drinking water to the students. Jok has been working with Abraham (the headmaster at Thian Wei) to coordinate the well digging plans and they are in the final stages of making arrangements with a local Sudanese company. Construction of the well should begin within weeks and be completed before the end of August!

School building progress is steady but slow due to the rainy season. We are currently waiting on soil tests to be completed near Thian Wei. Once results have been analyzed we can make final selections regarding brick making machines, etc. The first building team is scheduled to be sent in the fall to teach the community in Bor how to make bricks from locally available soil and aggregate. It will take about 2-4 weeks to produce the bricks required for the school buildings and then another month to cure. A second team will then be sent to begin construction of the school. We are very excited about this process, as the community will be able to produce bricks for their own homes from locally available materials once the school has been completed.

We have had a great first half of the year, and have an even more challenging and exciting road ahead of us for the second half. Thanks for your support so far this year!

HELPSudan has had an outpouring of support this summer from young people all over North America and we want to recognize the students that have gone out of their way to make a difference in the lives of children in Sudan.

Jessie Lilly, a high school Freshman at Parkland Composite High School in Edson, Alberta, Canada, organized a barbeque and art auction in her hometown on June 3 to benefit HELPSudan. Local artists and fellow students donated more than 40 works of art. The event was a huge success and exceeded Jessie’s fundraising goal of $10,000. As an added bonus, all plates and cups at the barbeque were 100% biodegradable!

After studying the Lost Boys in Brenda Foust’s World History classes, 4 high school sophomore classes in Iowa (110 students!) wanted to raise money to help Sudan. Together, they sold recycled glass beaded bracelets and raised nearly $800 to help educate children in Sudan!

Laura Krughoff, currently pursuing her Ph.D., hosted an event at Evanston Friends on May 31st benefitting HELPSudan and Jewish World Watch. Jok, Ajang, and a couple other board members attended. We had a potluck dinner, watched HELPSudan | IMPERATIVES, viewed a photographic documentation of Darfur, and listened to Jok speak. Those in attendance gave nearly $1,000 as well as a very generous matching donation for a total of almost $2,000!

Emily Coalson's 6th grade students at KIPP : LA Prep Middle School worked to educate family and friends about the plight of people in Sudan. Through bake sales and other fundraising efforts, they raised $200 to help the kids at Thian Wei in Bor, Sudan!

Youth Helping Youth from Next Step, an Outreach School in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada came up with the great idea of holding a Wake-A-Thon. Several students stayed up all night and raised $754 for HELPSudan! More information about this event can be seen in our May 2008 Newsletter.

HELPSudan wants to share more exciting stories like these in every Newsletter. If you have put creative fund raising ideas into action, we want to hear from you. If you have held or would like to host an event for HELPSudan, please contact us at info@helpsudaninternational.org.

On Saturday, June 8, HELPSudan participated in walkSUDAN, a 5K walk-a-thon to raise awareness about the plight of the Lost Boys. Organized by EndlessEye.org and also partnering with Panyijiar Community Development Services (pacodes.org), the walk along the Chicago lakefront was almost rained out. 30+ people trudged on though, chanting “They walked to live… We walk to give!” Check out the footage on our YouTube page.

The organizers of the event made a 20 year commitment to the Lost Boys, promising to have the walk every year to help rebuild Sudan.

On Friday, March 28, HELPSudan was featured on Focus On Africa, a talk show on CAN TV. Host Samuel Memoh interviewed Founder Jok Kuol Wel, and Chairman Del Shimandle about HELPSudan’s efforts to establish schools, recruit teachers and provide school supplies, clean water and health resources in southern Sudan.

When the Lost Boys came to the United States, most did not know their date of birth, so the US Government assigned them all January 1st. As a way to celebrate, HELPSudan’s annual fundraiser is a Birthday Party for the Lost Boys held in January.

And what a party it was… Held at the beautiful Swedish American Museum on Chicago’s north side, we were thrilled that the bitter cold weather didn’t keep anyone from attending. In fact, we had a capacity crowd! Our first attempt at a Silent Auction was a terrific success, the food was delicious, the décor was elegant, and the Lost Boys Choir was a rousing highlight. The debut of our “IMPERATIVES” video was well received, and coupled with Arloa Sutter’s enthusiasm and her challenge to give, we were able to get off to a great start with our fund raising goal for 2008.

We have great news to tell you! With gifts given through the start of the year and at the fundraiser on Saturday, the total amount raised is more than $33,000! We’re very grateful to each one of you for your generous support.

On Thursday, January 17, HELPSudan was featured on the Worldview talk show on Chicago Public Radio. Host Jerome McDonnell interviewed Founder Jok Kuol Wel and Board Chairman Del Shimandle and encouraged listeners to come out to our 2nd Annual Fundraiser, the Birthday Party for the Lost Boys. You can listen to the show on the Worldview website.

Happy New Year! 2007 was a great year for us. We exceeded our goal and raised over $40,000! With those funds we were able to continue paying 10 teacher salaries, send three board members to visit the school and to bring school supplies, blankets and mosquito nets, and also to purchase a cellular phone for the headmaster in order to facilitate regular communication with us.

We are also proud to announce that the Thian Wei school is so successful and so well appreciated by the community that, late in 2007, the local government body decided to take over responsibility of paying the teacher salaries!

From the beginning it has been our goal to start schools in a self-sustaining model, providing financial and logistical support as a means of jumpstarting efforts that would be taken over by the Sudanese themselves. We are thankful that the community and the local government recognize the quality of Thian Wei school. But even more, we are thrilled with the opportunity it gives us to focus our efforts on even more substantial goals in 2008: we are developing plans to dig a fresh well and to build a permanent school building for Thian Wei school.

HELPSudan is very pleased to announce that we are within $6,000 of achieving our 2007 fundraising goal of $40,000!  Thanks to your support we are confidently able to say that HELPSudan will provide a stipend for the entire year to Thianwe Headmaster Abraham Akech, the Deputy Headmaster, nine teachers, and three cooks that prepare meals for students every day!
We still need that last push to meet the goal of $40,000 and we need your help to do it!  Please click on the donation link above for details about how to get involved with HELPSudan.  (Online donations are coming soon!)

If this isn’t your first trip to HELPSudan’s website, you may have noticed quite a few changes.  At this point, they have mostly been cosmetic but we aren’t done yet!  We are in the process of updating content (including the news!) as you read this.  Several new features lie in the near future including a signup form for our e-newsletter, an RSS news feed, online donations, and a couple other surprises we’re working on.  Please keep checking back as these updates happen, but right now please check out the newest feature, our Media Page!  Just click the Media link above to view a video of the exploratory mission to Sudan that three HELPSudan board members went on earlier this year as well as an awesome journal that Eric kept during journey… more to come!

Some of you know, and some of you may not, that Ajang “Michael” Bol (one of HELPSudan’s founding board members) recently returned home to Bor, Sudan for three months.  While there, he reunited with several family members he has not seen in over 20 years.  He visited Thianwe and spent a few days working with Headmaster Abraham and even taught a few classes while he was there!  Michael also helped to make the first funds transfer directly to Thianwe’s bank account in Sudan, which provided three months stipend for everyone volunteering at Thianwe.  Ajang has returned to the US safely.